Biopharma sponsors reported a 40 percent decrease in clinical trial starts for the first part of 2020 because of COVID-19, according to a new survey that also shows 43 percent of respondents are optimistic that their clinical trial budgets will increase in the second half of the year.

Twenty-eight percent of the 120 U.S., European and Chinese biopharma executives surveyed by the Life Science Strategy Group (LSSG) expect their funding to stay the same and only 14 percent expect it to decrease in the second half of the year.

Forty-four percent of respondents said they plan to expand use of CROs and vendors to improve clinical trial recruitment. More than half of respondents said they plan to either adopt or increase their use of telemedicine and mobile applications to drive patient outreach and engagement for clinical trials.

Around 34 percent of respondents said they also plan to use social media to reach potential trial recruits, and 31 percent said they want to partner with patient advocacy groups to improve recruitment. Plans to increase advertising to support patient engagement and enrollment were cited by 25 percent of respondents.

More than half of respondents are involved in developing clinical research budgets, according to LSSG. Sixty-seven percent are part of a decision-making team, 13 percent are advisers to a team and 14 percent said they are the final decisionmakers.